English Point Marina is situated in Mombasa, Kenya. It is a contemporary hotel development which includes its own private beach front overlooking Mombasa city, serviced apartments, retail units, restaurants and East Africa’s first floating pontoon marina.
XCO2 were involved from the outset advising the architects, Broadway Malyan, on environmental design to ensure the building design abated the effect of the hot and humid climate limiting the demand on cooling equipment for the development. Detailed dynamic thermal modelling studies were carried out to optimise the façade design and enhance thermal comfort for the guests, residents and building users.
A site wide energy, water and waste strategy was developed by XCO2 followed by the preparation of a full M&E design.
Solar thermal panels were used for hot water and electricity generation, high efficient variable refrigerant flow units were used for cooling and a series of stand-by generators were included to deal with the unreliability of the national grid which in this location would not be available several times a day.
The availability of good quality water was the biggest issue which needed to be resolved. We focused on water efficiency as a first step to limit potable water demand. Groundwater was extracted for treatment via sand filtration and depending on the end-use, some water was treated with Reverse Osmosis. All waste water was captured and treated in bio-digesters which allows for 50% of all water used to be recovered and re-used again on site.
The development has drawn a lot of attention from professionals in the built environment, hospitality and construction sectors in Africa as an exemplar for sustainable development in a challenging climate.
